History of the Chicago Bulls

The National Basketball Association announced on May 3, 2011 that Chicago Bulls guard Derrick Rose was the winner of the Maurice Podoloff Trophy as the 2010-11 Kia Most Valuable Player Award. At 22 years old, Rose was the youngest MVP in NBA history (22 years-191 days on the final day of the regular season; previously Wes Unseld in 1969, 23 years-9 days). Rose also became the second Bull to win the award, as he joined five-time winner Michael Jordan as the only Bulls to be named league MVP in team history.

Michael Jeffrey Jordan turned 50 on Feb. 17, 2013, prompting trips down memory lane not only in Chicago, but across the nation and around the world. Bulls.com took a look back at his life, including that “Love of the Game” clause, MJ's best 12 days on the court, 50 vintage Jordan photos, and thoughts from Scottie Pippen as he prepared to celebrate his former teammate's birthday with the man himself.

Bulls' legends and Hall of Famers Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen attended and participated in the celebration, along with John Paxson, Horace Grant, Stacey King, Craig Hodges, Will Purdue, Scott Williams, Cliff Levingston, Dennis Hopson and Assistant Coach Johnny Bach. The 1990-91 team finished with a 61-21 record and won the NBA Championship on June 12, 1991 by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers 4-1 in the NBA Finals.

Bulls legend Michael Jordan, basketball’s greatest player ever, was among a class of five enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Sept. 11. The Class of 2009, which also included Jerry Sloan, John Stockton, C. Vivian Stringer and David Robinson, was inducted during festivities in Springfield, MA.

The final chapter of the unlikely story of Scottie Pippen’s playing career essentially came to fruition on Aug. 13, 2010, when the Bulls legend was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Remembered as perhaps one of the best complimentary players in league history but a superstar in his own right, Pippen delivered an eight-minute speech during the enshrinement ceremony at Symphony Hall in Springfield, Mass., in which he thanked several individuals who helped him arrive at that moment and recalled the Bulls’ dynasty of the 1990s.

Chet Walker was Michael Jordan for the Bulls back then, though a more demure version. Chet didn’t have the shoes. Heck, he wore the same ones everyone did, the Chuck Taylors named for a shoe salesman. He didn’t display the spectacle, the splashy flash of an explosive takeoff that left a public and media aghast. But the production was there, as were the results.

In 2012, decades after he played, Walker was enshrined as a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. In addition, Sam Smith, the long-time NBA writer for the Chicago Tribune, received the Curt Gowdy Media Award.

Longtime team broadcaster Johnny "Red" Kerr was honored for his career achievements and 35 years of service to the Bulls organization during a halftime ceremony on Feb. 10, 2009. Kerr, a native of Chicago, was part of the Bulls organization in various capacities for 35 of the franchise's 43 seasons, most notably as a team broadcaster for more than 30 years.

"Norm Van Lier was one of the all-time greats ever to put on a Chicago Bulls uniform,” said Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf of Van Lier's passing on Feb. 26, 2009. “Along with Jerry Sloan, he set a standard for Bulls defense and toughness which we will never forget and which we will always strive to replicate."

Can you name all of the Chicago Bulls’ retired numbers? There are six… Jordan is an easy one, but what about the other five? Click here now to see the individuals whose banners grace the United Center rafters.

For Bulls fans, the bridge between the 1980s and 1990s is the unforgettable 1991 NBA Finals, when, somewhere in the second half of Game 5 versus the L.A. Lakers, father turned to son, daughter to mother, and Bulls fan to Bulls fan, all asking, in genuine bewilderment: “Can this really be happening? Are we about to win an NBA title?”

Of course, Michael Jordan would be in attendance. Why wouldn’t he be? This wasn’t just any regular season game. It was Scottie Pippen Night, complete with a halftime ceremony during which Pip’s number “33” would become only the fourth jersey ever retired by the Chicago Bulls.

When you sneak a peek into the Basketball Hall of Fame, there’s a name of a notoriously quiet player that shouts out in absentia. Few players were as powerful and consistent on both ends of the floor as Artis Gilmore, and, while there are centers with more titles, MVP awards and higher profiles, you can count the pivotmen with more outstanding overall careers as the A-Train’s on one hand.

"It’s been 32 years since I made my debut with the Bulls, and what an entrance it was—better than my wildest expectations: 22 points, 14 rebounds, 13 assists, and 12 blocked shots. I notched the first 'official' quadruple-double in NBA history. And as I look back on it now, it feels a little strange to be known as the first person ever to get a quadruple-double in an NBA game."

The first half of the 1970s had proved to be the glory years for the Bulls, who came within a ball bounce or two of making the 1975 NBA Finals. Nearly a decade later, the club finally began to right its course. The captain of that ship was Michael Jordan, first fighting off the talent-rich Cavaliers, and, later, a band of Bad Boys from Motown—the Pistons.

"As the game heated up, the atmosphere in the Stadium did as well," Reggie Theus said of a Bulls-Knicks match-up in 1981. "I was a little concerned that a part of the building might collapse, or least one or two of the old rickety rafters might fall down. The noise was deafening in there."

In the first of a three-part series, Bulls.com turns back the hands of time to revisit the franchise’s most heated rivalries. Part I: The 1970s. No matter how powerful the Bulls were, teams from L.A. and Milwaukee continually conspired to keep out them out of the Finals.

"It was a huge thrill to come so close to the NBA Finals, as we did in 1974 and 1975, even if we fell a little short," recalls Tom Boerwinkle. "But my favorite game with the Bulls—a game that gave new meaning to home-court advantage—came more than 35 years ago, on January 8, 1970."

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